Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Daughters at Home

God wisely provided mothers to train their daughters at home. A daughter should learn about home making, while standing at the elbow of her mother.

Mother-Daughter and Teacher-Student Relationship is Important:

There are several things that take place when daughters are taught at home by their own mothers. Firstly, they develop a relationship with the teacher, which is essential in any kind of worthwhile learning. A mother as a teacher is an authority that is tailor-made for the temperament of her children. If she has stayed home with them and nurtured them, discipled them, and taken responsibility to educate them herself, she is superior as a teacher, to anyone else in the world. A mother is a teacher who loves her child better than anyone else, for she has borne her and knows her from the cradle.

The Home Provides Whatever a Daughter Needs to Grow and Develop into a Future Wife, Mother and Homemaker:

Home is the best place for daughters, and there is nothing anyone else can provide for them that is greater than their home life. The colleges can't give them what they really need, physically, emotionally, or spiritually.

The military cannot give young women what they need to keep their marriages together and their children obedient and loyal.

Careers cannot give women the skills they need for home making. Any knowledge that these places claim you need, whether it be from the military or workplace, can be attained in other ways, if it is really needed.

Ministries are often large youth groups, where daughters are used for washing dishes and sweeping floors--work they could be doing at home, to help their own mothers. Though many claim that they are "counselling" or teaching younger people, they would still be better off under the care of their own families, rather than working in someone else's ministry. Ministries can be worse than the work place, in that they rarely pay the young volunteers. Parents often send money to support them while away from home.

These institutions do not support us in the belief that our daughters are raised to become wives, mothers and homemakers and should be home, practicing for that career. We must, therefore, stop expecting that any agency or person in the world outside of the home can provide the things our daughters need for life and godliness.

As soon as a daughter reaches her teen years, it will seem like everyone has their hand out, beckoning to her to come and join them in college, at work, the military, ministry, and apartment living with friends. These people want your daughter because they can profit from her in some way. If a daughter has learned from her mother to enjoy home making, she will have no trouble resisting the friends and relatives and church members who want her to leave home.

Rest by the Pool, by Friedrich Peter Hiddeman, Germany 1829-1892

Homemaking is a Spiritual Thing, Not Just a Mechanical Thing:

Daughters need to know that anyone can wash a dish or sweep a floor, but it takes a heart of love and concern for the family to become a real home maker. If home making is just a mechanical cleaning of sinks and cooking necessary meals, the heart of it is lost.

Study the Old Paths, See What the Good WalkIs:

Think about the things that produced a feeling of home, sweet home, in the past. It was the mother making homey things: sewing thoughtfully for her family's needs, and making her own table cloth and matching curtains. It was the daughters taking tea on a tray to a guest. It was the grandmothers who tended pretty flower gardens, which grown men can still remember in detail. It was the women who sat in a chair with her feet on a small stool, contentedly knitting, while her husband and children were around her.

Taylor Caldwell remembered the scene of her Aunt Polly's home: "I would visit Aunt Polly for the soothing joy of being in a real home, among soft voices and gentle music, among fragrances and graciousness, topping it off with a real British tea..."

We go into the past because there we find a record of many things that women did when women's place was proudly in the home. Things that factories produce today, women did at home to show their love for their families. Things like handkerchiefs, socks, shawls, sweaters, embroidered cushions, wall pockets, plant boxes, dish cloths, soap, aprons, painted plates, and much more, were lovingly hand made. Tables were lovingly set with plates and cutlery, adorned by hand made napkins. It was not so much the material things that made the house a home, but those humble touches, which made the memories, which made the home feel so differently than it does in our fast-paced world.

One reason I place the 18th century paintings here, is for a peer into the work and leisure time of families, when the women were home focused.

Home is a Place of Freedom to Develop Interests:

The Home Quartet, 1882, Mrs. Lushington and Her Daughters, by Arthur Hughes, English 1832-1915

Home is the best place for grown daughters to develop talents. No other place can provide the kind of atmosphere and encouragement needed to pursue her different interests. I have seen the productiveness of daughters at home. There, they are free to make a beautiful quilt, sew a pretty dress, design a scrapbook to display family memories, make cards and gift-baskets. Music is a wonderful by-product of daughters at home. I have heard sisters sing in harmony while washing dishes. I know women whose homes have that wonderful, homey feeling, because of the talent of their daughters. There is more time at home to perfect these talents.

A Daughter's Presence Warms the Home:

Many women can recall the bleakness of the neighborhood when women went to work, en-masse. Going for walks was a cold and lonely experience, when passing darkened houses with no homemakers to light the home. Daughters at home make it a bright, homey place just by being their for their Papas and Mamas, to provide a pot of tea and serve a snack. I know some girls who are not particularly interested in hobbies, like painting or other arts, but they love to keep house. They get their buzz from seeing a clean floor or a polished table; a cooked meal and a freshly arranged bouquet of garden flowers on the coffee table. There is nothing wrong with that. They will always be happy, as long as there is house work to do. Others find some kinds of work tiring, and will need to have the perks of fancy work or pursue artistic and musical interests. It does not matter, as long as they know that the care of the family and the keeping of the home is what God expects of them. To neglect it is to put God's Word in a bad light.

The Test, by Thomas Armstrong, British 1831-1911

The Privacy of Home:

It is important for daughters to be at home to protect their own privacy. At college, a work place, in an apartment with other girls, in the military, and even in a ministry, there is gossip and false teaching. Remember that the world does not support the real needs of the young woman who has been taught to pursue the Biblical excellence of being a wife, mother and homemaker. If she has been taught these things, there is no reason for her to leave home, except to go into her own home some day when she gets married.

No Need to Ask, "What Will I Do Now That I'm Grown?"

If a daughter has eagerly developed the art of homemaking, there is no need for her, or her mother, to ever ask the question, "Now that I have finished my home education, what should I do? " for she will be busily putting to practice the many things that she has learned. Grown daughters can now let their mothers rest and re-create with their own past times, by doing much of the housekeeping.

Colleges cost a good deal of money, and even the scholarships are not completely free. The little it prepares a girl for a long-lasting marriage and the skills to have a stable home life, it would be better to use the money, if the parents have it, to give to her at her wedding, to help with a down payment on a house.

News From the Front, by Alexander Rossi, Italian, 1870-1903

Look to the Homes, to Find the Wives:

Men who are looking for wives, should inquire of parents if they know of any parents with daughters at home. College, the work place, the military, and sorrowfully, even churches, are not providing the kind of women whose goal is to get married and raise up a generation for the Lord. If you are a man, hoping to find a homemaker for a wife, you will not likely meet her at work, because she will be home with her mother. This is the training ground for future wives. The college is not. The military is not. The workplace is not, nor are ministries or apartment-sharing friends. Women who are learning to be wives, mothers and homemakers, will be at home, helping their mothers, until they are in their own homes with their own families. Young women who have been home, caring for her own family, will adjust more easily to caring for their husbands in their own homes. They will have had the training and the practice that makes it natural and easy to be contented at home.

Expect Insults and Intimidation:

Home is where God put the family. There are forces that have always worked to destroy the home, so that children will no longer respect their parents and follow their guidance. We should always hold on to high standards regarding the responsibility toward daughters. The rest of the world does not think this is "healthy" and wants to separate these young girls from the care and protection of their fathers and mothers, to get them under the control of colleges, employers, captains, ministers, and friends.

God placed parents in their lives for more than just feeding and clothing them and teaching them up to a certain age. As parents grow older, they become more wise and wary of the snares of the world, and are able to advise their daughters better than anyone else. You can expect a lot of resistance to your beliefs, so do not be astonished at the tactics that are used to intimidate you.

Those Phrases:

Such phrases as: "Don't you think your daughter is old enough to decide for herself" really mean, "I want to decide for your daughter. College recruiters want to decide for your daughter. The military wants to decide. The ministry wants to decide." When you hear phrases like that, you know that they are trying to get the daughters out from under the teachings of their parents, and get them in their college, their factory, their office, their army, their ministry, and their apartment. No one decides for themselves. Either they decide the way they are taught, or the way someone else has taught. There is nothing new under the sun,

Another phrase, "It is none of your business, now that she is 18" is designed to put you off so that they may insert their agenda for your daughter. They say it is none of the parents business, but they are making it their own business. The Bible says to train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. The college recruiters (usually a handsome young man recruiting young women, and a pretty young woman recruiting the men) do not believe that your daughter should continue in the homemaking way she was trained. The military does not want her to stay home and follow the way she was taught; the ministries do not support the family in their efforts to teach their daughters to be keepers at home; the workplace will not reinforce the way she should go. They are all telling her to depart from it. There is no substitute for the government of the home. It is mighty. It produces sons and daughters that marry, have children, practice a religion, make a homelife, and teach their own children to do the same. The family has a right to train up their children in their own beliefs. The world does not think the grown children should continue in the way they were taught. They think they should depart from it.

A Mother's Duty:

As a parent, you are obligated to guide your daughters into the right way of life. The Bible says that younger women should marry, bear children, and keep house, in that order. The world says that young women should spend their youth in colleges, workplaces, military, ministry and apartments. This is a waste of good womanhood, when it should be used to strengthen the home.

The Bible, The Ultimate Guide:

One can present all kinds of reasons for daughters to be home under the care of their parents, but the Bible is our last stand. There is no example of sending daughters off to work, to the military, to college, or even to ministry, just because they are not married. That is a 20th century plan, and a trend, which needs to be unsettled and thoroughly refuted.

Things Daughters Need to Be Doing:

1. Continuing in the good homemaking habits they have been taught by their parents.
2. Making their parents home a clean and lovely place. A mother with more than one daughter ought to have the nicest, cleanest, prettiest house. A large family should not mean a messier house, if daughters will do the work.
3.Making things for their mothers and her home: clothes, quilts, decorative items. They can also make things to sell, like the Proverbs 31 woman. Remember, she gave her products to the merchant, to sell. She did not sit around all day in a shop.
4. Start getting curriculum ready for future children.Make Bible lessons for littleones, complete with little illustrative crafts. Begin a notebook with things in it they might use.
5. Make her wardrobe. If marriage comes suddenly, she will not have time to sew, and if children follow quickly after that, she will be glad she had plenty of clothing.
6. Keep her own room clean enough for it to be a good testimony to her homemaking skills.
7. Learn new skills: ceramics, sewing, knitting, painting, making things from nothing, cooking from basic ingredients and not mixes or cans.
8. Learn to manage money and to substitute no-cost things, such as making cards and gifts, or making her own curtains.

For further research, some readers might find this of interest:The Mis-Education of Women
Tooley, British professor of education, takes to task the U.S and British educational systems for succumbing to feminists in the last 30 years and misdirecting young women into early careers instead of marriage and motherhood. The result is what he calls the "Bridget Jones syndrome," young women suddenly realizing they're squandering their prime opportunities to marry and reproduce. Refuting educational policy in the U.S and Britain that promotes gender equality, Tooley argues that boys and girls are different and should be counseled differently on life and career choices. He counters the arguments of famous feminists Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer, and Betty Friedan with Bridget Jones' Diary and vignettes of unhappy young women who have sacrificed personal lives for careers. Echoing Friedan, Tooley announces that the "problem that has no name" is the misdirection of feminism. First published in England to scathing criticism, this book is sure to spark vociferous debate in the U.S. as well. Vanessa Bush

45 comments:

Thanks for posting this; the thing about looking to the homes is something I NEVER would have thought of on my own. That's good stuff!

Unfortunately, it's also true; even what you said about the churches is true. Even though I probably ought to get back in to church, I can't find one worth my time. Either they're wrong on doctrine, are feminised, or all the above.

BTW, the churches have been populated with bad women for a long time. I remember 20 years ago getting this gal's number from an older man (my bus captain) in the church. She went to church also, though I don't know if it was fundamentalist like mine was. Anyway, I called her two or three times. During one of our conversations, the topic of submission came up. By her tone of voice, this gal indicated that she had a problem with it. She wasn't brazen like a feminist would be, but she nevertheless bristled at the concept. I didn't call her again.

Live the Bible's teachings and have faith in God. We were never commanded to have faith in the church or in people. A lot of pioneers studied and prayed on their own and eventually someone who believed the same way, found them.

A lot of people claim to have submitted their will to Christ, but still hung on to a piece of feminism, or other things. It is as if they said God can have a part of me but I am hanging on to ___________.

The picture labelled 'the Quartet' brought a very interesting point to mind. Recently, I listened to a radio interview of Don Bradman's granddaughter (An Australian Cricket champion from the 1930's until 1948). he lived from 1908-2001. One of the most vivid illustrations she painted was that of family music. many of this man's family members were musicians; pianists, perhaps a violinist or two. He himself was an accomplished ammeteur pianist. Wile ill as a child )polio, if memory serves me correctly), he remembered his aunts and grandparents *I think, re the latter) playing the piano in the home, and families singing around it. These were ordinary people, not well to do. Musical literacy was far higher less than a hundred years ago than it is now; ordinary people played and read music. The great composers of the past not only wrote the magnificent large scale works, but works for single instrument or small chamber groups, much of which was either designed to be played in the home by ammeteurs, or could be easily adapted to be played by those of more humble talent. Even the poorest of folk had fiddles, guitars, tin whistles and the like, and played, recreationally 're-creation', folks, making something beautiful, together.

This could be shared by the family, in the family home. Mothers would teach their daughters, who would teach their daughters, who would hand the skill on down through the generations. Now, musical literacy is virtually nill in the general populous, and seen as a luxury. The breakdown of the family has led to a corresponding drop in music-making by families, within families, for families. Additionally, there is a dirth of musical instrument teachers (this is a problem in australia, and I dare say, North America and the UK also); this is not surprising, seeing as many of these have traditionally been wives, mothers, daughters and spinsters teaching from the home (I learnt from several amazing women as a child and young person; the most noted examples being a daughter who lived at home and taught from her home (her father was a mathmatics teacher who als tutored from home when not teaching in the classroom), and another, older lady, a magnificent singer and pianist, who taught from home). This seems to have disappeared at an alarming rate; I'm only speaking of 20-25 years ago or so.

Times were simpler; the ecconomy wasn't king, we didn't have insane polititions schemeing to push women into the workplace out of the home, as they are craving to do, now... seeing each one as yet another tax source... anybody who suggests mothers take charge of their own families and homes in the political arena are sneered at and made to publically appologize for their 'mistake'... disgraceful!!

Let us pray!! Oh how we need to pray! Oh how I need to get down on my knees and pray so very much harder for the rot to stop!!

For the lady who is fed up with the churches, have you thought of the homechurch or housechurch option?

Love this post, and you are so correct. I'm 48, had a stay at home mom, but went to public school K-8, was sent to boarding school 9-12, and then went away to various colleges. Have wasted a LOT of time and money trying to figure out "what I wanted to be when I grew up." Funny, being a keeper at home is the most satisfying thing I've done yet, though I do it very imperfectly because I wasn't taught well. I've been home full-time 2 1/2 years and am still struggling to learn to be a keeper at home! Am hoping to learn so I can pass it on to my 6 yo daughter whom we are homeschooling.

Would you please post more about the heart of love in homemaking? Keeping the house clean and the meals coming is just a job to me, and I'm not that great at it, and truth is, I dont like or enjoy it. I love the homeschooling and hobby side, but find little time to sew, knit, etc. because I keep chasing my tail with the "house-work." It must be an attitude thing, but I'm a little slow to figure it out, so anythink you could share would be appreciated.

LadyLydia said...One thing you did not cover, and that most people never admit or expose, is the extreme loneliness that will beset a young girl away from home. People tell her she just needs to get over it.Its a terrible punishment and it is not at all necessary. If more mothers would allow their daughters to stay home, they would be rewarded in so many ways. Loneliness can drive a young girl to make poor choices and to become resentful. Most people that send their kids to college have homes and the daughters could stay there and start businesses of their own or develop their own ministries or be full time homemakers. I agree with you that they should use college money for houses, instead. You can re sell a house; you cant do that with all the years and money spent for college--you cant really get your money back unless the girl works for years and years.

There are a couple of young ladies (late teens, early 20s) at church who are "looking for jobs," with the full approval and encouragement of their parents. This includes a young newlywed woman whose mother has told me that she does not know how to cook or keep house at all...she "job seeking" with the full approval of her husband. They ask us to pray that God will approve and bless this willfullness at prayer meeting!

How about instead of "job-seeking," we seek after the kingdom of God, knowing that He will add everything necessary to you (Matt.6:33)? But we do not receive what we ask for, because we ask that which is not pleasing to God, as He has fully explained in the Bible (Mark 13:34, John 14:23, James 4:3, 1 John 3:21-23, Titus 2:3-5, Jude 1:6).

Instead of what they ask, I pray that the Lord would show these Christians to obey Him in the roles He has ordained for people, according to their gender. The young ladies and the homes would be so much better served with the ladies at HOME, where the Bible says they ought to be.

I encourage them to stay home, but it's like it goes in one ear and out the other.

I loved this post and it's very ideal thinking but for a daughter like my self, who lives at home and does all of these things you mention...where and how do my sisters and I meet the ideal young man to marry? We know of no men who are longing for the peaceful married life and raising children at home. What can we do?

Asking the church to pray that girls will get jobs, is a way of dumbing them down and making them think it is okay. Just because you pray for something, or even get it, does not mean it is always right. It is easy to get a job outside the home, especially for women. You do not even have to pray for one. But just because something is billed as an "opportunity" it does not mean it is meant to be or that it is right.

As far as meeting someone, your parents have to take an active and even aggressive search for it. Too many parents are passive about it, and embarrassed to ask around. Others spend more time deciding on the right college for their daughters than they do finding the right man. Parents have more connections than the daughters and they ought to be finding. I know one father who brought someone home from work, who met his daughter and they got married. Fathers and mothers know best and they have a better look into character. They will get unusual looks and responses, for asking, but it has to start somewhere. Parents spend more time looking for a car for their daughter than they do looking for a mate. Look to the old paths, where people once found mates. The girls in previous decades had no trouble finding mates, but today it is getting harder, and it does not make sense.

How much time do you spend praying about this? And how much time improving yourself and getting ready?

I know women who are not yet married but content to be so, and still finding plenty to do at home and for others away from home. When young women go to work, it leaves a big gap that could be filled by being available to help others.

I really appreciate the way you speak the truth. I agree with you, and yet I am not bold and could be easily manipulated by the culture to go to work. It feels very foreign to me to visit about not going to college with my 9-year-old daughter, and yet turn around and talk constantly to my 12-year-old son about getting his degree in engineering. This is such unchartered territory for me. My family believed very much in education (even if it was never "used"). My mom really admired Jacqueline Kennedy for getting a liberal arts degree. My grandmother went to nursing school in the 1930's, my aunt has a PhD, my mom was an economist turned Registered Nurse, my other aunt has a Masters degree in Chemistry. I didn't feel smart enough to do those "hard" fields, so I got my degree in Social Work. Now I am trying to tell my little girl to not go to school...it is rather uncomfortable to tell you the truth. But I am forever indebted to you for speaking the truth and encouraging us all to be obedient to the bible, not the culture.

I love being a wife, mother, and home-maker. Before I even understood what the idea of right living was, or what women should do in life, or even before understanding faith, religion, God, Jesus Christ, the Church it's purposes and histories both for good and for ill, or even the Bible-I knew in my bones, my heart, my gut-that it was what was right and natural. As I grew up I got confused because of everyone else telling me that I needed to be and do more. My Grandparents and parents did teach me some basics on cooking, cleaning, childcare, and making the most of being a woman-yet with an attitude of just getting a duty done. I got a bit more out of Sunday school, home ec. school classes, and 4-H classes but again an attitude of just getting the basics of duty finished with. College, career, even plain old jobs have always been crammed down my throat from everyone with much more excitement with the dire warnings of never completely putting my faith in men because they die young especially in wartime or in freak job accidents, they will divorce you for any reason and if they don't die or divorce the good ones get disabled and you spend you're life taking care of children, eventually your parents, and an invalid for a spouse. Businesses now count on the cheap labor of women to survive, governments want the extra taxes, and lots of parents and Grandparents want their daughters out of their homes so that they can go travel the world and either sell their homes or shut them down so they can be footloose and fancyfree and not have to worry about their daughters. Elderly strangers want your daughters working because social security and Medicare, and Medicaid are being bankrupted keeping them alive in their last 6 months of life on their deathbeds because medicine in our country is so corrupt and expensive-eventually they might require all women to work in our country till the age of 70 just to sustain that beast. So there is a lot of money and cheap labor to be made of the labor of women for those in power. Not to mention a lot of men don't want to have to grow up and be responsible for families-they want sex and someone to be maid and cook for free so they can get ahead in their own jobs faster as well as half the rent money from the womens job. Thats why i'm so grateful for this blog-it took me years to get to be here now-and a lot of my stupid mistakes along the way were made because of trying to do things my parents way or the schools way, etc..because I trusted those people and institutions to have my best interests at heart and they didn't often out of their own confusion. Now, that I know better its hard to do because then most everyone in my life thinks I blame them for life being hard and am trying to live in an old-fashioned world that doesn't exist anymore. The worst is my husband has almost lost his job twice now simply because I don't work-his boss thinks he must not need his job much if I don't have to work and of course his boss is a woman who has been married 3 times, had several children with different men, and has almost lost all her workers there jobs with her laziness and unprofessional attitude. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Bravo on this post.As our society displaces God, love and joy in favor of material goods, alarming numbers of people are depressed and anxious. Instead of creativity, we get homogenization of the cultures of the world. The best and maybe only way to pass on cultural traditions is mother to daughter (or daughter in law), or even Aunt to niece. The care and love put into making homemade foods, decorating for the holidays, or Sunday dinner, knitting and sewing lovely gifts, as mother and grandmother did, all take time, creativity, and care, not money.

These things fill a life with joy and love, keep a family connected through time, and even save the earth.

C. C., I question whether we should be sending our young men to colleges. I think we ought to spend time seeking alternatives to colleges and universities, as they do not uphold our morals for the most part, and besides the expense, their methods of teaching sometimes are not effective, and very inefficient.

I read a long time ago about a family that, upon graduation of each of their children, the parents asked each child what they wanted to do. One wanted to start a farm, one a garden nursery. The father set each one up on the way to pursuing their dreams. To me, that is the ideal to strive for: the parents finding ways to help the children to their dreams without turning them over to colleges and unis to have their minds warped.

I realize there are things (such as engineering) that still require a degree, of course. But I believe that the more we look for alternatives, and the more people there are that pull away from liberal colleges, the more the opportunities will arise for better ways for those who want to pursue such degrees.

You gave us much to chew on today. I need to reread this about 10 times. I totally agree with you, although our daughter is attending a tiny private super conservative Christian college 30 minutes from home.

We never participated in youth groups. It does seem when they reach the teen years, there is always a hand out for our children. I put a stop to that early on. Family was most important and I got tired of outside influences pulling my kids away from our priorities as a family.

To CCYou aren't telling your daughter not to be educated, you are educating her in her future career. It is not the same.

I have 12 year old daughter and a 14 year old son. I am preparing my son to be able to provide for a family and my daughter to care for her husband, home and family. God-willing, she will marry a man who will fulfill his duty of providing for her and she will be at home to care for him.

I am trying to raise her to be a WIFE, not a wage-slave, so that is how her education is geared. She is still getting an education.

If she has interests and talent beyond what I can teach her, she can take classes and study from books, etc, on those subjects, from the protection of her father's home.

She has her whole life to study and learn, especially as she will not bear the burden of earning a living. Keep up the good work!HKA

We have believed for too long, that the secular system would give our sons careers. Indeed, they may, but the system of education that is required, sometimes pulls them away from what parents really intended, which was family. The education establishments are so full of fools and foolishness.

Many Christian colleges and seminaries, billed as "conservative," still teach feminism (deaconess programs, wives working to put their husbands through seminary, women fearlessly conquering the "mission field," independent ministry as a career, etc.--I still haven't figured out why a woman's family is not considered an adequate "mission field") and evolution (or theistic evolution, other compromises, etc.) and that the state grants legitimacy (as in tax status, accreditation, etc.).

I would urge parents to check carefully, and not rest on a claim of "conservatism." Or better yet, keep them home until they are ready to leave and set up their own home. :-)

In a sense, the church is a mission field, these days. Keep them home--and educated and productive and respectful and charitable--and be a shining light for all the Christians who don't understand that Christians obey God because we love Him for saving us and because we are bought with a price. And blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly but rather who meditates in the law of the LORD day and night (Ps. 1) :-)

Here are the lyrics to a hymn that probably "bit the dust" in a lot of churches that went "contemporary" and "neo-whatever," How Shall the Young Direct Their Way.

How people must have praised God with such thanksgiving in their hearts when they sang this hymn for Him teaching them the way they should go, and "safely leading" them

Now people seem to believe for some reason that it's all up to them, God provides no answers, they're on their own to carve out a slice of life for themselves. How sad!

How shall the young direct their way?What light shall be their perfect guide?Thy Word, O Lord, will safely lead,If in its wisdom they confide.Sincerely I have sought thee, Lord,O let me not from thee depart;To know thy will and keep from sinThy Word I cherish in my heart.

Such a wonderful post. It is so very true, the loss of support for homemaking.I have been home for a number of years, and strongly believe it is the best life for a woman. What a priviledge. I feel sorry for those that are caught up in careers and college and the military. Most of them never had examples.

While home school parents were cautious and avoided youth groups, they inadvertently went full circle and met them in college, the military, ministry, and other places. It is the same concept: a lot of young people together, with a low parent ratio (wisdom) and off on their own away from the family. We cannot expect to have strong,loyal families if sons and daughters join these groups. College can be pursued in other ways and I question the necessity of it. To be anti college these days though is like saying you are against the Bible. College is far over rated in this country and produces little but debt.

I heard a really good sermon recently that made a lot of sense to me. It was on the commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain". We are always told that this basically means that we should not "cuss" using God's name, but that never made sense to me, the way the commandment is worded.

This pastor finally explained it in a way that made the full weight of this commandment mean something to me for the first time. I know that God doesn't approve of cursing - that is in other scriptures - but that is not what this commandment is about.

It means just what it says - in a covenant, you would "take the name" of the other party you are covenenting with, upon yourself - such as a woman does when she gets married, she takes her husband's name. When we come into covenant with God (now through Christ), we take His name upon us.

There are so many people who take the name of the Lord upon themselves, as Christians, and then refuse to walk in the ways that scripture has shown them, or to faithfully and expectantly receive his Word as we walk through life. They take His name, in vain. The result is that we show to the people around us a complete misrepresentation of the name of God and the nature of God.

For many years I was in such confusion toward God because my mother loved God so much, and yet her marriage broke apart after 20 years. She always said it was because she wanted to go on with God, and my father hated her because of it. To me, that meant that following God would bring absolute misery in my life, and constant loss and heartache. I was very confused about why God brought such never-ending pain into my mom's life. The more my mom "loved God", the more she couldn't get along with anybody!

My mom was very into Bible study, and she always explained away the scriptures about women in the home, and feminine submission, by a lot of "arguments" she had read in Christian books against it.

When she finally got married again, 20years after her divorce, there was a very embarrassing moment during the vows, where my mom refused to say "obey" to her husband. As I watched this new marriage unfold, from an adult perspective, I saw, indeed, that my mom was the proverbial contentious woman, and the new Christian husband turned predictably cold toward her, as she moved closer to Christ.

If this makes any sense, I believe my mom continues to break this commandment, by taking the Lord's name, but not accepting the beautiful Biblical role of womanhood, and all the blessing that goes along with it, into her life - the way that He created it to be. There are so many women like this. They take on God's name, but you would never consider them blessed people who are benefitting from the covenant of walking with Almighty God, because they reject the very homelife that He created them to cultivate. Their lives come to a certain "vanity" at the end, and they deal with loads of discouragement, and bitterness and loss. It makes others not want to "take the name". It really puts the fear of God in me to realise this.

I believed the scriptures I read about my femininity in the Bible, and soaked up as much teaching from wise older women that I could. My marriage is so sweet, 12 years later, that sometimes I feel I can't even believe it. God is good, and faithful to His Word, and can be trusted.

Just because a girl or boy does not go away to college, does not mean they need to do without a wonderful education. It is possible to study great books with Mother or Father to prepare for and take CLEP, DANTES, and ECE test to get a BA or Master's Degree. I think homeschooling is opening up a whole new world academically. Our youth do not need to be subject to humanistic rhetoric to obtain credentials. They do not need to be subject to the party mentality to prepare for the future. They can stay home and do without "big high school," for that is all it really is.

The reason to emphasize college diplomas for girls as well as boys is we do not know what the future holds for the homeschool movement and its legality. My friend in Tenn was not able to continue homeschooling her children into high school without a Bachelor's degree. This is what I'm talking about.

Read more about this idea here. http://www.milestonesacademy.com/Site/Complete_Your_Entire_Bachelors_Degree_While_Still_In_High_School.html

I agree with the previous comment. Parents had to go through some heart aches before they realized they cannot allow the colleges (Christian and non-Christian) to un do the very values they homeschooled them in. We have to start preparations early, to train the young men. I already know of older men who are preparing to teach what they know about their professions.

Your explanation of the meaning of that command, is a lot weightier than the cursing aspect. The New Testament says to do "all in the name of the Lord." The name of the Lord would mean "by his authority." So, if you were to take the Lord's name in vain, you would be doing things without his authority, or scriptural approval. I have seen so many people ask God's blessings on something they were doing, or a decision they were about to make, when it was contrary to the commands and yet they wanted His stamp of approval on it. That is taking the name of the Lord in vain.

There's nothing I appreciate more than Lady Lydia saying that poor women have just as much right to stay home as well-to-do women.

Even if the finances don't look like they could work out, if you belong to God, and believe what He said, you should be able to come home and expect that God will bless your husband with provision for the home.

To accept His benefits is very humbling, and will change you and bring sweetness into your life and marriage. We have really had to pinch for long, long periods of time, but we have made it through this far, and I have learned to look to God to feed us and protect us.

Coming home still means lots of work, but it's a blessing to be doing women's work, not men's. If you are rusty in these areas, it may take years to see the fruit of your labor, but keep going in the right direction, and you will be blessed.

You may feel sorry for your husband, as it just seems too good to be true for you to get to stay home and him to have to go out. A man may dream of having lots of free time at home, but when he actually gets too much of it, he becomes restless and irritable and starts to yearn to get out and accomplish something again.

Don't feel guilty about coming home. Enjoy it, and give your husband the gift of a wife who enjoys the freedom he has provided for her! What a compliment to your husband! Men really take it as an insult if a woman is unhappy at home. You have to WORK to make it happy. That's your full-time job.

I think young women who have not been brought up in homey homes and learned homemaking at the elbows of their mothers, live in fear. Their education teaches them that they have to know everything before they can do anything. It teaches them to be afraid to stay home and be able to make things work. One thing I have noticed they are afraid of, is poverty. There is nothing wrong with poverty if you are an honest and God-fearing, obedient servant of God. The kind of poverty to fear is the kind that comes as a result of vices like smoking, drinking, partying, and in general, waste. If you do have poor times in your life, let it not be from that. Some people have times of poverty for the sake of a good name or because will not earn money from something that is questionable in its honesty. Most people have financial ups and downs, and like the apostle Paul, know how to be abased and how to abound.

I have noticed this attitude, that if a person does not have the money to do something they want to do, or buy what they want to buy, then "it just is not right," or it "should not happen," and they want to change the moon into the sun or make the water flow in a desert. They cannot accept the realities of life. They do not know how to make something from nothing and they do not understand the challenge or the inventiveness of it all. Life to them is about getting things and having things and having no limits.

Fantastic ideas from all of your readers! I love the positive comments and the encouragement that everyone is offering to one another! Thank you for allowing all the input and your own commenting back to the different points. This was an enlightening post for me!

I will be giving this essay to my daughter to apply to HER two daughters. Thank you so much Lady Lydia for such clear, simple but deep words of advice and wisdom.

A lady friend knows of young ladies who attend a church which strongly encourages these young ladies to attend the college of the church for future work in a ministry. That is not good news! The world is turned upside down!!Lynn M.

This will be printed out for my binder for inspiration and encouragement (I need that on a daily basis..I really should have had my children younger because they run circles around me LOL).

This post made me relive some sad memories of childhood. Always with strangers or other family members..other than my parents. When I was sad or misunderstood I was ignored or they became frustrated. My Mother would have understood in a moment what was wrong. I look at my little ones and cannot think for one minute why I would allow them out of my sight..in the care of a stranger.

So sad.

And, it ticks me off because I am sitting here in my 30s married and with children and trying to learn everything I should have learned as a young lady. Sigh. At least my daughters will not go through that. But it is so hard because I want to be an expert and then teach them and I often find I am learning either right along with them..or right before I show them.

"Live the Bible's teachings and have faith in God. We were never commanded to have faith in the church or in people. A lot of pioneers studied and prayed on their own and eventually someone who believed the same way, found them."

Thank you for this. It is quite lonely for me because I am the only stay at home Mother that I know and the churchs around us...well, they seem to have lost their collective minds. My Husband and I are praying for like minded friends to appear soon. But you are right. I can study and worship on our own here...still it is getting lonely if you actually read the Bible and follow Christ.

The home is the mission field and it is there that people need their sons and daughters. The military or ministry need and want your children; your children do not need the ministry or need the military. Anything they can give them, they can get in other ways through other people without having to leave home.

You cannot have faith in the church members because they might let you down, and then you would lose your faith. The church members are just spiritual brothers and sisters, but the Bible is your authority.

Daughters or sons sent away from home to be with others their own age will pick up attitudes that are completely foreign to the goals of the family. In the work place, the schools or colleges, the military and the ministry, or with friends, they learn to be critical and mocking of what is lovely and good. This also happens in the home if they do not practice certain boundaries. It leads to grown women who complain and deride. Everyone has to be careful not to get caught up in a herd mentality of running down creativity, or enterprise. I have seen this mentality among the youth, but also occasionally with the old. In the home, there are factors like television, radio, reading material or communication where there is a lot of this going on, it can influence daughters at home in the same way as if they were running with the crowd. A parent has to be wary of relatives and friends, even church members, who are not wholeheartedly in favor of girls being home.

Mark, I have tried to tell a friend who runs all day in her car, that she is using up the money she earns in marketing. She gets paid, but she has to run around all day long and stock shelves, and it is not cost-effective. Earning money from home is a better deal since you do not have to pay out extra for rent of an office space, or extra for the car travel expense.

This post brought tears to my eyes. It is so much the vision I have for my family. I have been so slack in diligently teaching my three girls. With another one on the way I realize that I need to really step up. I need to see past the overwhelming feeling of not knowing what to do. I just need to jump in and learn with them. With three soon to be 4 daughters we should have the prettiest little house on the block. Thank you, Lady Lydia, for your honesty.I have known all along that my girls do not see the joy in homemaking because I do not show it to them!

When you mentioned how lonely the empty streets now are without the homemakers merrily working at home. It reminded me walks every time I was out when I was young. It brought back memories of walking down any street and in summer and you could hear the children laughing and people playing pianos and singing through the open windows. Smells of meals being cooked even yes a pie or custards cooling on the ledge of a window. Girls playing jacks on the porch while Father was reading the paper in a chair nearby. Winter brought the twinkle of the Christmas trees in the window and different wreaths on the doors and candles at the windows. Mothers coming out of the homes with baskets on their arms for their purchases at our local butcher or little stores. Snow boots on the porches by the door. Every season was family time. While the husbands and children were at work and school the street was still alive with women bustling about doing their work and visiting neighbors. Where I lived the women got together to help each other mark hems in the dresses they had made or do spring cleaning together, canning or whatever they might do to help each other. They were always home in time to make diner and I never will forget the pride of all the women at the special meals they alone cooked the best!! The time when Father came home was always special. Hospitality was the rule of the days and yes I was in and out of all the homes for blocks around for all my life and they were happy and you felt love and kindness from all of them. These were real women and since they were doing what was natural to women they felt comfortable and happy doing it. I still see this and thankfully know women raising daughters to be at home and later in their own homes. There is such a different beautiful life if people would just embrace what they should be ding.

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Welcome

" So far as this world knows or can vision, there is no attainment more desireable than the happy and contented home."

This is a Proverbs 31 and Titus 2 teaching blog, where you will find some ideas for creating the kind of home life that gives you a sense of well-being, creativity and accomplishment. It will help you understand the reasons for being the Biblical keepers of the home, as opposed to the world's answer of being career women outside of the home.

I really hope to help restore the culture of the home, which is a never-changing precept of the Bible: marriage, home and family. Young women especially need to know there is something else of greater importance than college and career, and that they play a vital role in making a stable family. In order to have strong marriages, respectful children, and good churches, women need to return to the home. My blog is based on the precept of First Timothy 5, verse 14:

"I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully..."

These articles are designed to give the homemaker ideas for doing an excellent job in the home and for enjoying the role of homemaker and guide of the house. Marriage, the family and home life is splintered. Women must be allowed to return to the home.

For Previous Posts

Scroll down to the end of the last post on the page and click "older posts" to view previous posts. You can also scroll down to the last part of the sidebar and see the subjects in alphabetical order, and find the post you are looking for.

Homemaking Books

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Copyright

You are welcome to print out articles and photographs for your homemaking notebook. You can link to any articles I've written or put them on your site if you will contact me. Please do not put photographs of my family or me on any blogs or on the internet anywhere without my permission.

The Queen's Ire

England's Queen Victoria wrote in 1870, "I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights', with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were woman to 'unsex' themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings, and would surely perish without male protection."-- Queen Victoria, 1870.

Don't Forget

Don't above all things, forget you are a woman; she is far more attractive when seen in the flowing draperies that centuries of use have made their own, than when masquerading as a man."--author unknown, written approximately 1850.

Home

"Why do women want to dress like men when they’re fortunate enough to be women? Why lose femininity, which is one of our greatest charms? We get more accomplished by being charming than we would be flaunting around in pants and smoking. I’m very fond of men. I think they are wonderful creatures. I love them dearly. But I don’t want to look like one. When women gave up their long skirts, they made a grave error…" ~Tasha Tudor

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. ~Jane Austen

Home ought to be our clearinghouse, the place from which we go forth lessoned and disciplined, and ready for life. ~Kathleen Norris